Sunday, February 9, 2020

Anastasia @ Playhouse Square

Review by Laura Kennelly

Imagine My Fair Lady, only this time set in Russia and Paris. The Broadway hit, Anastasia, now at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace, offers sparkly, hummable tunes, and an enchanting fantasy about a lovely young woman from the lower class, one who (like Eliza Doolittle) must convince upper-class society that she’s one of them.

Directed by Darko Tresnjak, with music by Stephen Flaherty and book by Terrence McNally, this lavish musical production sports a frothy plot. It skims over (for the most part) the horror of what happened to the Russian royal family in 1917 and plays with the hope that one daughter survived. The show revolves around the efforts of two con men to convince the world that one royal Romanov, 17-year-old Anastasia, survived her family’s massacre when Bolshevik revolutionary forces took control of Russia. Without getting into whether or not Anastasia Romanov really did survive (recent DNA studies seem to prove she did not), McNally’s version makes us wish she had.

Stunning visuals — ranging from dramatic, sparkling, silver, blue and white scenes at a Romanov ball (“Once Upon a December”) to those recreating a train ride to Paris — add much to the show. The train’s progress at times was so realistic one could almost forget that the passengers weren’t moving (thanks to videos streaming behind the rotating train car). Enhanced lighting and backgrounds also added beauty (especially at the Paris ball) and realism (on the Paris bridge).

The team behind those winning effects includes Alexander Dodge (scenic design), Aaron Rhyne (projection design) and Donald Holder (lighting design). Linda Cho’s costume designs were also outstanding.

Lila Coogan’s Anya (and later, Princess Anastasia) sings and dances like a dream. No wonder everyone falls under her spell. When Anya leaves Russia, along with con man Dmitry (a charming Jake Levy) and fleeing Russian aristocrat, the self-confident Vlad Popov (Edward Staudenmayer), we hope she succeeds. The three travel to Paris to reveal her identity to her grandmother, the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (a regal, but heartbroken Joy Franz).

Of course (as in all melodramas), the trio is pursued by a bad guy, in this case the handsome Gleb Vaganov (Jason Michael Evans) . He’s a Russian official assigned to bring Anya back alive if she’s merely a deluded peasant. (If he thinks she’s really Anastasia, he’s to bring her back dead).

There’s even a bit of comic bawdy in Paris when Staudenmayer’s Vlad and Alison Ewing’s Countess Lily Malevsky-Malevitch sing and dance in “The Countess and the Common Man.” Ewing’s Lily skillfully combines gymnastics with dance. Her amorous efforts, especially while still dancing, bring appreciative laughs.

The melodious score is a huge plus. More than a few audience members left humming the nostalgic (and recurring) waltz “Once Upon a December.” That song can definitely become an earworm (just ask me). Some tunes, such as “Learn to Do It,” generate a spunky exchange between characters —a staple in musicals (think Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady and many others). Lawrence Goldberg ably conducted the sizable pit orchestra.

Bottom Line: Anastasia is a light, enjoyable musical that offers a new take on the rags-to-riches motif. It’s a perfect winter treat. The national touring company does a bang-up job of bringing Broadway to Cleveland. (And yes, Cleveland was mentioned in the dialogue — but I bet a different town is named at the next stop — we all laughed anyway.)

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The Scottsboro Boys at the Beck Center, Feb. 2-23

THEATER REVIEW: “The Scottsboro Boys” @ Beck Center by Laura Kennelly

Through Sun 2/23

Brilliant and daring. The latest Baldwin Wallace University/Beck Center collaborative production, John Kander and Fred Ebb’s The Scottsboro Boys, directed and choreographed by Jon Martinez, provides a stunning (albeit starkly condensed) musical sketch of a real event.

In 1931, nine African-American young men (ages 13 to 20) were arrested in Alabama on charges that they had raped two women who had been hitching a ride (train hopping) on the same train. Over the years, evidence and history has shown that they were falsely accused and that what happened to them was a tragedy.

While dressed up as an old-fashioned minstrel show, The Scottsboro Boys is a serious show. Like the works of Bertolt Brecht, it has jokes — some funny, some bitter. But they don’t offset its story’s somber side. To be explicit, it doesn’t flinch from the ugly truth about racism.

So it’s not a musical walk in the park, or if it is, it’s a scary walk in the park that takes a look at society’s ugly truths. But, it’s also a show full of talented performers, all but one (Greg Violand) students at Baldwin Wallace. Their vitality and jaw-dropping dance skills, plus fine vocal and acting chops, all combine to make a mesmerizing night at the theatre.

An appropriately authoritative Violand, as the “Interlocutor” (i.e. White Man) serves as the Master of Ceremonies. Violand tells us he’s going to offer a brand-new show. As Interlocutor, he orders the African-American characters (that is, all the other actors) around throughout the show.

Violand starts the action by delegating Mr. Bones (Nick Drake) and Mr. Tambo (Charles Mayhew Miller) as his assistants. Naturally (given the times) they do his bidding without question. Both Drake and Miller offer edgy, assured performances in their pivotal roles (and when the talented duo dances, the thought “Can humans really do that?” comes to mind frequently). Just to make things more fun (and under Violand’s orders), they also fill other roles, such as the Attorney General and lawyer Samuel Leibowitz.

Over a dozen musical numbers and dances make the story race along. There’s action all the time and the fact that there’s no intermission seems irrelevant — time just flies.

At one point, as the “wronged women,” Javar Parker (as Victoria Price) and Tavon Olds-Sample (Ruby Bates) make a delightful spectacle of their (lying) characters as they flounce around the stage singing “Alabama Ladies.”

Anthony Harris creates a heartrending, lovable Haywood Patterson. He does it through showing Patterson as a defiant, self-confident person (of course he does — that’s good acting), but he also does with his voice, especially in “Make Friends with the Truth” and “You Can’t Do Me.” When he and Jahir Hipps (as Eugene Williams) sing the ballad, “Go Back Home,” they break hearts.

Other Scottsboro Boys include Gordia Hayes, Marcus Martin, Jahir Hipps, Anthony Harris, Elijah Dawson, Brinden Harvey, and Savannah Cooper. Cooper is also dance captain.

And lastly, one mysterious character, The Lady (a dignified RhonniRose Mantilla), floats around the stage, observing, but not speaking until the end. In many ways, her presence signals the change to come. It’s a hopeful note to end a sad, bittersweet tale, all the sadder because it’s based in truth.

Additional credit for this professional-looking and -sounding production should go to Matthew Webb, orchestra director; Jordan Janota, scenic designer; Steve Shack, lighting designer, Susanne Houstle costume designer, and Carlton Guc, sound.

BOTTOM LINE: The Scottsboro Boys‘ 2010 Broadway presentation garnered twelve Tony Award nominations. It’s a fine and challenging show in the tradition of Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret and Chicago. Somehow having age-appropriate actors (the majority of whom are African-American, and all of whom seem Broadway ready) makes this production all the more touching and wonderful.

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Clue: A New Comedy

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Mean Girls

Mean Girls @ Playhouse Square, December 3-Dec. 22
Review by Laura Kennelly

Mean Girls combines song and dance to tell a semi-comic story about teens finding their “place” in high school. Based on the 2004 film (also Mean Girls), it features a book by Tina Fey, music by Jeff Richmond; and lyrics by Nell Benjamin. It’s directed and choreographed by Casey Nicholaw

This is the show’s first national tour since its 2018 on Broadway opening. (It is still running).

Adjusting to high school is rarely easy, even for those who are introduced gradually from first grade on into the public-school system. For our main character, Cady Heron (a likeable Danielle Wade), it’s especially hard since she was home-schooled in Kenya. For some reason, her parents decided going to high school in Chicago would be good for her, so they moved to the United States. (It’s not a persuasive plot device, but who am I to question Tina Fey? It works, kinda.)

This awkward setup gives Mean Girls an excuse to draw comic parallels between the natural world of Africa that Cady knows well and the savage natural world of the Chicago high school that she knows nothing about.

Cady’s “kindly native guides” Janis Sarkisian (Mary Kate Morrissey) and Damian Hubbard (Eric Huffman), both social outcasts, provide her with the lay of the land. They point out various groups, jocks, nerds, and so on. Cady soon wins the approval of the ruling females, dubbed “The Plastics.”

The trio is led by Regina George (Mariah Rose Faith), who smiles a lot, but judges everyone; Gretchen Wieners (Megan Masako Haley), Regina's top follower, and Karen Smith (Jonalyn Saxer). Saxer’s Karen is delightfully dumb and has some of the best lines. When told Cady is from Africa, she asks, “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?!” (Karen’s the girl who says what everybody might be thinking, but no one says.)

It’s not Carrie or Heathers (no one ends up dead, although someone does get hit by a bus), but it is definitely one of those “high school is hell for girls” musicals that teaches a lesson about how to treat others (which is, “as you would like to be treated,” of course).

On the good side, the large cast skillfully executes the dance routines.

One of the most striking elements in Mean Girls was not the music (routine pop, nothing special), but the video design by Finn Ross and Adam Young. Projections on the set behind the actors made the show fresh, reminding us where we were (Africa, the high school, their homes, and so on), and letting us “see” the cruel comments written over students’ pictures that cause big trouble.

Bottom Line: There are funny moments, the cast is good, but the story has, overall, been done over and over. Yes, we know growing up is hard, but get over it. (I feel like a mean girl now, but there’s something about this show that brings out the snark.)

Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Kinky Boots at Baldwin Wallace

THEATER REVIEW: “Kinky Boots” @ Baldwin Wallace by Laura Kennelly

[Photo of Nick Drake as Lola by Roger Mastroianni]

Through Sun 11/24

A perfect fit? Yes, indeed, Kinky Boots at Baldwin Wallace University shows how much joy (and maybe enlightenment) a musical can bring.

This youthful and vigorous (and sold out) collegiate premiere, directed by Victoria Bussert, with Gregory Daniels as choreographer and Matthew Webb as music director, is true to the original Broadway hit, written by Harvey Fierstein with music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper. It’s a pop musical with a real heart.

Set in Great Britain, Kinky Boots is partly about saving a family factory in an increasingly competitive market. It’s not that the shoes are poorly made, it’s that they are too well-made and competition from overseas factories (not in the USA) has driven down the price and cheapened the product.

And it’s also about (and the main idea driving the action) learning to accept people for who they are. (Don’t try to “fix” people.)

The four leading roles were double-cast. I saw the opening night for both. The youthful leads brought a fresh energy to the show that the two national tour versions at Playhouse Square lacked. Cast members for both shows made each incarnation of their characters unique, even though they used the same words and sang the same original songs from the Broadway version. (I know, that’s called acting, but the vibe was refreshing.)

Both Charlie H. Ray and Andrew Faria as the hapless Charlie Price were likeable and earnest. When Charlie suddenly inherits the factory he must either dispose of or save, he learns how to run the family business (a chore he’d been avoiding). He also meets factory worker Lauren (played by Kailey Boyle and Sydney Howard). Both Laurens were quietly desperate, perky, and funny in their attempts not to fall for Charlie. They do perfect justice to one of the best numbers in the show, Lauren’s comic anthem, “The History of Wrong Guys.”

As Nicola, Charlie’s bossy fiancée who pushes him to sell the building for a condominium development, Nadina Hassan and Caroline Didelot reveal both Nicola’s glamour and her icy, self-interested heart.

Things look bad for the Price Shoe Factory until Charlie accidentally runs into Lola, a person he thinks needs rescuing. But what he has really come across is his own rescue. When drag queen Lola’s heel breaks, an inspired Charlie realizes that cross-dressing men who dance in high heels need strongly built shoes in big sizes. Boom! A niche market!

Nick Drake’s Lola rocked the Lauper pop tunes and then stunned us with a velvety, luxurious, “Hold Me in Your Heart.” Also comfortable with the outgoing personality of Diva Lola, Gordia Hayes showed great comic timing, especially in the big fight scene (“In This Corner”) with Ethan Rogers’ “tough” factory worker Don. Both nights Lola’s team of six dancing “Angels” (Lee Price, Mateus Cardoso, Nick Cortazzo, Kyle Elliott, Nic Hermick and Charles Miller) showed plenty of flair as they moved gracefully in fancy gowns and high heels.

One highlight (among many) in the show came when Roger’s Don (brawny and a bit dense), Pat (an appealing Eden Mau), Lola and others in the ensemble have fine fun with Don’s idea of “What a Woman Wants.”

Education of another kind came when cute Little Charlie Price (Colin Willett) and precious Young Lola (Isaiah Young) were shown getting very different “lessons” from their fathers. Charlie’s dad (Ben Senneff) and Lola’s dad (Anthony Harris, Jr.) loved their boys, but couldn’t understand their life choices (as is often the case with parents and children).

Overall, wow! Choreographer Daniels and the cast presented stunningly executed dance numbers, some featuring over two dozen performers, others with smaller ensembles. The set designed by Jordan Janota and the costumes by Charlotte Yetman brought real Broadway flair to the show.

Bottom Line: An outstanding delight that matches Broadway productions. Latest word is that Kinky Boots tickets are sold out, but it would be worth checking.

[Written by Laura Kennelly]

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Looking Back at Elyria: A Midwest City at Midcentury

Looking Back at Elyria: A Midwest City at Midcentury by Marci Rich

Book Review by Laura Kennelly

The book’s twelve essays, all with fine photos from “back in the day,” describe everyday life in Lorain County—more specifically, in Elyria, Ohio—from her childhood in the 1950s through the 1960s. As Rich writes, “One benefit of nostalgia, or of remembering, is that there is something to be gained by looking back, and perhaps that something is finding a new way forward.” These essays were inspired by a request from the Chronicle-Telegram to celebrate the city’s bicentennial.

Quirky facts abound, such as how Heman (yes, that’s how he spelled it) Ely decided to name the new town in 1817 by combining his name with that of the Illyrian provinces in Europe. Rich likes to think he also summoned up Shakespeare’s Illyria, the magic kingdom in Twelfth Night.

We think the world of iPhones (thanks, Facebook and Twitter, etc.) is complicated, but even in the telephone switchboard days, as Rich’s book reveals, phone life was complex. She recounts an interview with the niece of a local telephone operator. (Oh, wait, that’s probably news to us now too—phone calls had to be personally placed by operators sitting at the telephone company that you had to talk to.) The niece shared typed protocol instructions issued to switchboard employees during World War II. Fun fact: Priority calls—from the President on down—could break into any other calls.

By Rich’s time, party lines were taken for granted. Several families might share a line, and rules about not listening in to others’ conversations were printed. (Of course, not everyone followed those rules and one could hear many interesting things that were “none of your business.” Rich probably didn’t do that. I did.) If you ever need a way not to pay at a pay phone (sadly phone booths are largely extinct today), Rich shares a method her young girlfriend used. (See page 93—I’ll never tell.)

Overall, this collection of stories is like something one might hear at a family reunion—especially ones describing the stores in town, their owners, shopping in them. Others reflect on history and are touching in their brutal truth, such as the loss of twenty-year-old “Bubby” (Norman Jones, Jr.) who had just applied for a job at the Ford plant, but got drafted instead. He served in Vietnam only four months before he was killed. What, Rich asks, might have happened if he’d not been drafted, been alive, when the news came (which it did) that he’d gotten the job? We all lost, she argues convincingly.

Rich remembers seeing presidential nominee John F. Kennedy in “When JFK Came through Town.” Her father put her on his shoulders so she could see him on that September 1960 day. Later, she recalls, she remembers her mother crying at the news of Kennedy’s assassination. Others in Elyria, whose names she chronicles, had closer association with the President and were also devastated by his death.

Bottom Line: This is a well-written memory-rich book, not only for Elyria and Lorain County residents, but also for anyone who grew up in middle America (hand raised here, though far from Ohio). It celebrates a commonality of experience to be treasured and remembered.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

The Band's Visit: National Tour at Cleveland's Playhouse Square

THEATER REVIEW: “The Band’s Visit” @ Playhouse Square by Laura Kennelly

Through Sun 11/24

Once upon a time in Israel, the Egyptian Ceremonial Police Orchestra musicians took the wrong bus. Is this true? Who cares? An intriguing “What happened next” forms the heart of The Band’s Visit now at Playhouse Square’s Connor Palace. This Broadway Series show directed by David Cromer, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and book by Itamar Moses, won the Tony Awards’ Best Musical (not to mention nine other awards in other categories).

It deserves it.

Eight band members, led by Tewfiq (Sasson Gabay), have a gig in urban Petah Tikvah, but language difficulties cause them to go to the wrong city and so they are stranded overnight in Bet Hatikvah, a sleepy desert village. In the opening song, everyone in Bet Hatikvah sings, “Waiting,” which is what they are doing: Waiting for something, anything to happen. (If you’ve ever driven through small towns in West Texas, New Mexico or Arizona, you know what they mean.)

When local café owner Dina (Chilina Kennedy) sees that the band needs help, she finds them places to spend the night — some with her, some with friends. Like Come From Away, the story shows strangers finding welcome.

The cast makes everything believable. Gabay’s Tewfik vacillates appealingly between confidence and awkwardness as he and Dina become friends.

Kennedy’s charming, mesmerizing stage presence is such that when she looks out into the audience to talk or sing, it’s easy to feel she sees you, cares about you and wants to charm you. She does, especially with “It Is What It Is” and (in delightful tribute to romance) “Omar Sharif.”

We see two workers in Dina’s café — the awkward Papi (Adam Gabay) and Itzik (Pomme Koch) — discover that the strangers give their lives new (and welcome) perspective. Gabay’s young character learns to court a girl and Koch’s learns to negotiate his marriage and extended family.

For the show’s first 60 minutes, recent Baldwin Wallace graduate Mike Cefalo seems to be merely furniture. He’s the poor “Telephone Guy” who stands throughout the show next to the town’s only telephone. His girlfriend in the United States promised to call. He waits and waits. Then, in one of the show’s joyous closing moments, he sings the moving “Answer Me,” and it becomes an anthem for everyone.

There’s more, of course, lots more. Some includes going out at night to party (and roller skate), some involves drinking and looking at the stars, and some brings heart-to-heart sharing and honestly. The result? People discover commonality and the bus comes in the next morning. Nothing changes and everything changes.

Other ensemble cast members include Jennifer Apple as Anna, Marc Ginsburg as Sammy, Kendal Hartse as Iris, Joe Joseph as Haled, Sara Kapner as Julia, Ronnie Malley as Camal, James Rana as Simon, Or Schraiber as Zelger, and David Studwell as Avrum.

The production’s choreography by Patrick McCollum and set design by Scott Pask create an outstanding use of the rotating center stage. It’s a house, a café, a bar, a skating rink, a bus stop. Whatever is needed suddenly appears.

And how about the music? Some members of the Egyptian Police Band seem to play their instruments, others convincingly fake it. The appealing original Tony-winning score sounds authentically Middle Eastern. Conductor/keyboard player Rick Bertone leads the “real band” (Tony Bird, George Crotty, Evan Francis, Roger Kashou and Ronnie Malley) from a veiled, raised platform above the stage.

BOTTOM LINE: Tonic for the mind and soul. Watching it is like watching a tale from the Thousand and One Nights come to life. Moonlight, romance, music, and longing combine to weave a subtle musical magic in only 90 minutes.